Friday, August 27, 2010

Nuggets

I have a million and one things to be doing right now (especially since the littlest is finally taking a good nap) but I thought I'd share a few things we've been up to lately:

♥ I've finally gotten into the habit of packing dinners for my husband to take to work every day. This hasn't completely eliminated all the eating out he does, but now he's down to just buying drinks and snacks when he's on his break instead of entire meals. In order to expediate this process and give my husband a variety of dinners (instead of just sandwiches) I've been doing a bit of OAMC/freezer cooking (as it's known in the blog world) lately. Just a little bit after the kids go to bed, but I've successfully made my first stromboli (with ham and cheddar), whipped up a huge batch of potato salad, and made a large batch of pinto beans in the crock pot. Next up are homemade taquitos (I have the meat cooked and shredded, just need to fry the tortillas and roll them with the meat).

♥ Shiphrah is officially daytime potty-trained. Well...at least as far as pee goes. She held her #2 for three days before finally filling her pull-up this morning. Not sure how to convince her to go #2 in the potty. Nighttimes and naptimes will be hard too because she's always peed in her sleep. She does hold her morning pee until we take her to the potty though, so her diaper is only half full in the mornings. We still have to remind her to go pee a lot, but she's finally taking some initiative and telling us some of the time as well. (Unfortunately oftentimes that's every 5 minutes...)

♥ Now that she's using the potty, Shiphrah is also washing her hands constantly which has been causing some really bad excema flare-ups on her wrists. We've stopped the soap use for now...does anyone have any recommendations for some really good sensitive-skin soap?

♥ Kirk is still teething (going on four months now?) but I think we're finally nearing the end of it. He's gradually getting over the clingyness and becoming slightly more independent. He's also added a few extra words to his vocabulary: "ball," "dad-dad," (grandad) "nana," "baba," (baby) and "mama." Add those to "CAT" and "dada" and he can now say a whole SEVEN words. He'll be 18 months old next month.

♥ Ronnie is the typical newborn, but is becoming increasingly vocal and is starting to smile and laugh regularly. It's adorable! He'll be 7 weeks old on Sunday. (And as an aside...TMI warning...why am I the only woman in the world that has PP bleeding for the full 6 weeks?? My poor husband is a saint. )

♥ And a few pictures to wrap this up:

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Monday, August 16, 2010

Yes, I'm finally blogging...

I really shouldn't try to blog while the munchkins are still awake. They always manage to get into something while my back is turned. In fact, right now Shiphrah is "riding" on the rocking chair and Kirk is pulling all the VHS tapes out of their boxes. But since that's a relatively easy thing to clean up, I'm letting him go to town.

Ronnie is napping right now, which is always SUCH an accomplishment for me. He has to be convinced to fall asleep and if he doesn't, he's a real grouch all day long. (I can't believe he's already 5 weeks old!) But he is my first baby that lets me rock him to sleep, which I absolutely LOVE. Newborns are so sweet and cuddly!!

(Random aside: I buy Bolthouse Farms juice for the munchkins because it's real fruit and I feel good about giving it to them. They were on sale last week so I picked up a bunch, including one new flavor that has blueberry juice in it. Well, I quickly learned that blueberry juice going in smells the same as blueberries do coming out. So now I have to smell that on the kids' breath all the time. YUCK.)

I'm slowly getting into a routine around here. I almost hesitate to say that though because I don't want to jinx it. Nighttimes are the biggest struggle now. Ronnie is usually overtired and grumpy so he sits in his swing and screams while I get the other two kids ready for bed. It's frustrating because I like having a bedtime routine for the kids that includes brushing their teeth, cleaning their room, getting PJs on, reading the Bible, praying together, and saying goodnight. That whole process takes about 20 minutes or so (longer when we add a bath) and when Ronnie is upset, I'm tempted to just throw PJs on the kids and put them to bed. It just makes me feel like the worst mother ever when I let my newborn scream.